3DS into LW frequently = horrible mess, usually because of something happening in the initial creation of the 3DS mesh.
We work ACAD > 3DSOUT > LWO and frequently have to rebuild sections where 2 'solids' have been combined/boolianed in ACAD but when the result is output as surfaces via 3DSOUT an apparently contiguous surface comes out with a different number of divisions either side of the join line. I presume that MAX can fudge the join on rendering, but LW can't.